Chapter 9

After my father took his seat at the breakfast table, and while my mother was still at the sink, I asked both of them who they still knew at Shepaug University.

David, who preferred not to talk before his morning egg, said, "No one."

"That's not true, David," Sharon said. "You know Gerry Severn."

"I know Gerry Severn," he said to me.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Gerry's the head of the English Department," my mother said, "or was, a little while ago. He must be seventy years old now, at least. He was the man who invited your father to come and be a writer-in-residence. If it wasn't for him, Lily, you would never have been born."

"What about you, Mom, who do you still know?"

"At Shepaug? Carrie Michaelson, of course, and Mark Loomis. Why are you asking this?"

"Who do you know who's gossipy?" I said, realizing that most university people were naturally disposed to talk behind their colleagues' backs, but what I really wanted was someone who would have thoughts, and maybe even opinions, about Josie Nixon's death.

"Gossipy?" my mother said.

"I have a friend who's interested in applying for a job there, but she wants to get the full scoop about the place. You know the stuff: How much infighting is there? What departments to avoid?"

"Oh, let me think," Sharon said, as my father carefully removed the shell from his soft-boiled egg. "Well, the biggest gossip at Shepaug was Patty Riley—you remember her, don't you, Lil?—but that was an age ago."

"Try Libby Whatshername," my father said suddenly. "She taught in the English Department."

"She's long gone," Sharon said.

"What, dead?" David said. "I don't think so. I saw her two weeks ago at the bookstore. I mean, she might be, but she'd be freshly dead."

"No, I mean she's long gone from Shepaug. She's your age."

"All I know is that I ran into her at the bookstore and without even asking she started to tell me everything that had happened to everyone we ever knew at Shepaug. And now I'm going to stop talking for a while and concentrate on my breakfast."

Later, after my father went to his study for the morning, I followed him in and asked him about Libby. "She's not going to help your friend out any," David said. "The gossip she mostly had was about who had died and who was still alive. Old person's gossip."

"I actually want to find something else out," I said.

"Oh," David said, his unruly eyebrows raising a fraction.

"There was a suicide on campus last summer. It was during a teacher-training conference and one of the participants leapt from Milner Dorm."

"Yeah, I heard about that. Did you know that Arnold Milner, who donated the money for that atrocity, was a pedophile?"

"I did not know that."

"He was."

"You think that has anything to do with that conference participant jumping out of his building?"

I'd said it as a joke, but my father thought for a moment and said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Lil."

"Yeah, I suppose. Look, all I'm trying to find out is if it was a clear suicide or if there was something suspicious going on."

"Well, Libby will probably be your woman for the job. I think her last name is Frost."

"I don't suppose you have contact information for her?" I said, not really sure why I was asking. My father didn't own a phone and probably didn't know what "contact information" even meant.

But he thought for a moment, then said, "She's down at Stone's Throw probably every morning. They have a coffee shop there now, you know."

Stone's Throw was the name of our town's independent bookstore, run by a longtime Shepaug resident named Stanley Perrini. It was one of the few places where my father agreed to go, partly because he liked Stanley, and partly because there was a whole shelf devoted to David Kintner books in the store.

"When were you there that you saw Libby?"

"I see her whenever I'm there, but I talked to her a couple of weeks ago. It was some morning you weren't around and your mother dropped me off there on her way to rehab her hip."

Our town center was about two miles from Monk's House by road, and about a mile and a half if you walked through Brigham Woods and then cut across the old Keene Farmstead. I put on my boots and set out through the woods, reaching the bookstore about five minutes after the morning rain had really turned torrential. I stood just inside the entranceway and dripped for a few moments. The coffee shop area was to the right, a counter offering hot drinks and baked goods, plus about five small tables, three of which were occupied. I barely remembered what Libby Frost looked like, although she'd been one of my father's coworkers during the years he was at the university, but from where I stood I could hear a woman's slightly cracked voice and knew immediately that it was Libby. She was diminutive, her hair back in a gray ponytail, her mouth circled with the tiny wrinkles that longtime smokers had—but the voice was unforgettable.

I went to the free table closest to her and draped my wet coat over the chair, then got myself a hot tea from the teenager behind the counter and took my seat. Libby was still talking. She was seated at her table, a picked-at croissant in front of her, but the woman she was talking with was standing up, in her coat, a Stone's Throw plastic bag in her hand. I recognized the woman's posture as belonging to someone looking for an opportunity to interject a few words to indicate she had to get going. Sure enough, after Libby finished a story about her neighbor turning her garage into some sort of Airbnb rental, the woman in the coat said, "Lib, I've got to run. Scruffy's at the vet."

"Go, go," Libby said.

I pried the plastic lid off my tea and blew on it. I'd been thinking about how to introduce myself to Libby Frost when she suddenly said, "I know you. You're David Kintner's daughter."

I turned. "Guilty, I suppose."

"You won't remember me," she said, brushing croissant crumbs from the front of her purple sweater, "but David and I taught in the same department back in the caveman days."

"You're Libby Frost," I said, and her eyes lit up.

"Oh, smart girl. I am. How's your father? You know, I saw him here not too long ago, and he told me that he was late for his hormone replacement session..." She looked at me questioningly.

"He was kidding you."

"Yes, I figured that. He was always a naughty man, your father."

I asked her if I could join her at her table, wanting to get closer to her just so she'd speak a little more quietly. She was thrilled for the company, she said, and spent twenty minutes recalling some of the stuff my father got up to during the years he was an adjunct professor. Most of what she told me was harmless—the department meetings he slept through, the time he drunkenly gave a reading from a new book all while impersonating the then–department head's voice perfectly. "No one would get away today with what he got away with, I'll tell you," Libby said, with a faraway look in her eye, and I wondered if she'd slept with my father. It was hard to imagine, looking at her now, but my father, and my mother, as well, had made quite a sport of infidelity back when they were married.

"You know, I was thinking of you the other day," I said.

"Oh yeah?"

"I met this guy—he's the husband of one of my dearest friends—and he said he'd spent a week at Shepaug last summer for some teacher-training conference. Didn't you used to arrange the summer programs?"

"No, you're thinking of Diane Hodder, probably. Back when I was at Shepaug my husband and I rented the same house in Tuscany each summer. They couldn't have paid me to stay here in Connecticut during the summer months."

"Right, Diane Hodder. Haven't thought of her in years."

"Was your friend's husband at the art teachers' conference?"

"Probably," I said.

"You must have heard about it, but that was the conference where one of the participants jumped from Milner."

"Yeah, I know. That's why we were talking about it. It was awful, he said."

"Oh, I'm sure. Poor girl."

"What do you know about it?" I said, leaning in close, hoping to invite her to tell me any salacious details she might have up her sleeve.

"Do you know who found her... found the girl's body, I mean? It was Jim Prescott, out for an early run. I heard she was naked. Can you imagine?"

I didn't know who Jim Prescott was, but said, "God, poor Jim. Why did she jump, did anyone know?"

"There was a whole murder investigation, from what I heard. She didn't leave a suicide note, so I guess they had to wonder if she'd been pushed off that balcony. I say they should just tear down that whole monstrosity. Who puts balconies in student dorms to begin with? And Arnold Milner was a pervert, you know."

"Yes, I did know that."

"But they can't take his name off because he was never convicted. So I say just tear that whole dorm down and be done with it."

"I don't think anyone would complain."

"There'd be a celebration."

I took a sip of my cold tea. "Who was the woman who jumped, someone from around here?"

"No, she was an attendee. Josie Something. She was an art teacher from Woodstock."

"And did the police determine that it was a suicide, after all?"

"From what I heard it was eventually ruled a suicide. But I also heard that it was only ruled that because they couldn't find any solid evidence of foul play. Some people think she was thrown off. I know her husband made a big stink about it. He came down here, insisting she'd never have killed herself, and that some murderer had gotten away with it and was now out on the loose."

"Understandable," I said.

"Right, but what I heard, and this was not public information at all, was that that girl had been looking for company during the conference. Everyone knows that all these teacher-training conferences that Shepaug runs turn into Roman orgies late at night. I guess if you spend your time teaching sixth-graders to make collages you need to add some excitement to your life any way you can."

"So the rumors were that Josie Nixon was sleeping with someone at this conference?"

"Well, the rumors were that she was hoping to, that she was on the make, for lack of a better word. And, of course, she was naked when she jumped."

"And she was married."

"And she was married."

"So, it's possible," I said, "that she had sex with someone at the conference and then felt guilty about it and threw herself off the balcony."

"Right. Or he felt guilty about it and threw her off the balcony."

"Did her husband know about all this?"

Libby frowned, the tiny lines around her mouth contracting. "I don't really know. All I know is that he didn't believe she killed herself, so he probably also didn't believe she'd have an affair."

"Probably not," I said. "Maybe it was easier for him to believe that someone killed her than it would be to believe she took her own life. Or to believe she had an affair and then took her own life."

Libby got another one of her faraway looks and said, "Do you remember Eileen Morrell? No, you wouldn't, would you? She taught here before you were even born. Her husband shot himself and even left a note behind. Eileen must have felt guilty about it, because the rumor at the time was that she was sleeping with someone in the Science Department. She kept insisting that her husband had been killed, the suicide note faked. They gave her compassionate leave, or whatever they were calling it back then, but she never came back. I wonder what ever happened to her."

I was doubly wet and doubly cold when I made it back to Monk's House. I stripped down and took a long hot bath in the claw-footed tub on the second floor. I thought about Josie Nixon and her husband. And I thought about that summer conference for art teachers in July, the days filled with panels and classes, and the nights with social events. Josie Nixon, for whatever reason, had been excited about the prospect of a summer romance. She'd have met Alan Peralta, the man who set up his booth of funny T-shirts and quirky trinkets. Everyone attending the conference would have met him, of course. And was he there looking for a temporary fling as well?

The door to the bathroom swung inward and April padded in. She wasn't my cat, exactly, although I'd named her for the month, two years ago, when she'd first shown up at our house uninvited. She came and went as she pleased, mostly visiting the barn, where I left her food, and it had been a while since she'd come inside the actual house. She sat on the bathroom tile and looked at me. "It's called a bath," I said.

When I got out from the cooling water, she sashayed back out the way she'd come in.

That night, while my mother watched PBS mysteries, I sat next to her on the couch with my laptop and found out everything I could about Josie Nixon and her husband, Travis. There were really very few newspaper articles about her death, but there was an obituary in the Albany newspaper, and there was a remembrance page on which people had left comments about Josie and the hole she'd left behind.

There were multiple images online, including several that came from Travis and Josie's wedding website. They'd met at art school five years earlier and gotten married two years after that. They both looked as though they were in their late twenties. Josie had a pale, round face and long hair that she'd dyed jet-black. She wore a lot of high-necked white shirts, but in the few pictures where she was showing some skin, it was clear that her arms were covered in tattoos. Her husband could have passed as her brother. Same sallow face but a little rounder, and he had a waxed mustache. On their wedding day she'd been in a traditional white dress and he'd been in a dark shimmery tux, but in every other picture of them he was wearing black jeans and graphic T-shirts, while she was usually wearing black velvety skirts, shirts with brooches, or vintage sweaters, her inky hair parted in the middle. Like Wednesday Addams, I thought, then remembered that Wednesday Addams had worn her hair in pigtails. Josie's husband was a graphic designer and aspiring comic book artist. They had lived in Woodstock, New York.

A little while ago I had created a false Instagram account under the name Rose Sheldon. This was back around the time I was helping Henry Kimball with the case that nearly got him killed. I logged on to my fake page, not entirely surprised to find that I'd acquired a few new followers, including a man who'd sent me a message that began, Hello, beautiful ... despite there being only three posts on my page, two of April the cat, and one of the white rosebush in our front yard. I found Travis Nixon's page. It wasn't private, and I was able to scroll through hundreds of photographs. He'd been clearly enamored of his wife before she died, but since then every post was of her, along with a long text about how the police had stopped looking for her murderer. Every post ended with the hashtag: #JusticeForJosie.

I amended my fake Instagram bio so that instead of it saying "Gardener, amateur detective, adventuress," it read "Independent journalist. Looking for stories no one else wants to tell." Then I sent a message to Travis Nixon: Hi Travis. I'd be interested in doing a piece about the death of your wife. Would you consent to an interview? I have no agenda besides uncovering the truth. Regards, Rose Sheldon.

I sent it off, then immediately regretted it, thinking I should have given it a little more thought. All Travis would have to do was google "Rose Sheldon" to discover that she'd never published a single article. He'd identify me as an impostor, and probably conclude that I was some sort of con artist. I thought about other ways to approach him. I could be honest, of course, without giving him any real names. Just let him know that I had a friend who suspected her husband of targeting women at teacher conferences. But he'd insist on knowing more. From looking at his online presence, it was clear that he was deeply obsessed with the death of his wife.

I was thinking of closing my laptop and getting ready to go to bed when I received a response. Rose. Thank you, thank you for reaching out. I'd love to tell you my story. In person? On the phone? I live in Woodstock but would be willing to travel. Travis.

I wrote back that I'd be willing to meet him in Woodstock for lunch at noon the following day. He seemed ecstatic and named a place called the Dove and Hare.

After sending that text I decided to call Martha. She picked up right away, and there was a breathless quality to her voice, as though she were waiting for bad news.

I told her what I'd learned, and my plans for tomorrow.

"Okay, wow," she said. "But even if he's convinced she was murdered, it might not mean she was."

"I'll talk to him and see. But, yes, he's obviously going to try and plead his case. In the meantime, you and I should start making some phone calls, do some research."

"Like what?"

"We could call the police departments in the cities where you found those crimes. Tell them we're working for a private investigator, and ask for updates. They'll either talk to us or they won't, but you never know. We could also call crime reporters in those cities. That might work."

"I think I could do that," Martha said, but she sounded doubtful.

"It's worth a shot. We might get a chatty cop. Stranger things have happened."

"Okay, sure," she said. "I could definitely try. I can actually start tomorrow. Alan's here, but he'll be gone most of the day tomorrow. He told me he's doing an inventory count and that will take him most of the day. I've already told him I'm coming down with something, so I'll call in sick to work."

We talked some more about questions to ask, and I could tell that she was starting to get excited about the assignment I'd given her. She was a librarian, after all, and there's nothing a librarian likes more than an assignment.